Midnight at Never Get review – Ben Platt flies in cabaret honey-songs of 60s sweethearts | Section

Bny Platt’s word for speed was invented many years ago. The Tony, Emmy and Grammy award-winning actor (Dear Evan Hansen, The Last Five Years) starred in Mark Sonnenblick’s (KPop Demon Hunters) love story, a honeyed cabaret about two gay musicians trying to make it in 1960s New York.

I am Menier Chocolate Factory set up as a light cabaret (set up by Scott Pask), Platt and Trevor Copeland, a local singer who recalls the years he spent with composer Arthur Brightman, played with skill around Gregor Milne. The history of their love is told through stories shaped around songs of the American Songbook genre, which are sometimes wet, as the two go in and out of things created by Sonnenblick: now the number of jaunty knees; now it’s a big ballad.

Although Platt is the star of the show, Milne is its anchor, at the same time believable as a troubled artist offering new songs for his lover like cups of tea, with a steady hand behind the piano, which works as the story is heard and the key place of the flawless band. There is a quiet power in the two men singing love songs to each other, as they begin to perform in public, with their clear voices losing some listeners and finding others. When politics comes knocking on the doors of their underground club, they face an important choice: protest, or adapt. Between their differences and their downfalls, the crisis makes their life a smooth jazz affair.

As darkness creeps into the story, we begin to notice the narrator’s gaps in time and memory. Director David Cromer (The Fear of 13) maintains the relationship of the show by keeping things simple, with small magic tricks – suitable to hide the mystery – to wrap the loose thread of the story, even if the gut punch can hit too hard with the trim. Midnight in Never Get sees music as both heartbreaking and healing. With one eye on the one about to walk through the door, it shows what love leaves you with when all else is lost: music playing at the top of your lungs to remember what you were.